Nearly posted a random picture from my transfer in Frankfurt airport, purely to get a gratuitous 8th country onto the blog, but then managed to capture this sign, which I’ve been trying to take a photo of for the last few visits. That I managed it today was a result of the car being stopped right by it – on what was not a great night to experience Russian traffic.
Was determined to hide at home today, as it’s the day the students get back; and had, in fact, the perfect plan – to spend hours having the first session for my new tattoo. But that had to be cancelled because the tattooist was ill. So I had suddenly to get creative in various ways, including with the daily picture. This was my best effort – the entrance to the car park of the factory below our house (you’ve seen it before). I kinda like it because for once, the spurts of flare on the image can mostly be disguised.
Along similar lines to yesterday, in some ways, but still the only really decent photo I took today in an otherwise rather mundane day for pictures. It’s a classic view, and not hard to capture – just head up the A6033 from Hebden Bridge to Pecket Well, towards Haworth, and there it is. The church is in Heptonstall, a village above Hebden Bridge (Sylvia Plath is buried in the churchyard) and there has been a monument on Stoodley Pike for two hundred years. This is the second structure; the first collapsed in 1854. It was originally built to commemorate the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815.
Fourth and final day of the ALT-C conference, but the picture is not of Manchester today: this is Hebden Bridge station, as you probably recognise by now. An early morning after a late return the night before. Ow.
Told you not long ago that this place was all coming down. I like the combination of light and dust cloud on this shot.
An unexciting subject for a photo but this was an unexciting day. It does at least mark the first appearance of the exterior of the Ellen Wilkinson Building at university, in which I (occasionally) work. Named for the UK’s first female Minister of Education, by the way. But not a building of great architectural merit, inside or out.
This building has been erected since I started this blog – it wasn’t there a year ago. It stands near Oxford Road station in Manchester. I am particularly impressed with the budget accommodation visible here, but I doubt it’s very suitable for anyone worried about heights.
Another one of those days: look up, see a sky, want to move to a different city. Half an hour after this came another intense cloudburst: until a couple of months ago I’d have said ‘I’d never seen anything like it before’ but of course we have. (The building is the AQA headquarters on the Manchester campus.)
Still off work, went to York for the day – a fine city with plenty to do and see (but lots, and lots, of people in the narrow streets). Could have presented a photo of the architectural glory that is the Minster (cathedral), the Roman ruins, some of the best-preserved city walls in Europe, the National Railway Museum… but instead, let’s go with this picture of a devil puppet, attached to a busker’s fiddle so it twitched and boogied as he played. Why? Because, I don’t know, it’s cute, and had no objection to having its picture taken.
Last day in Helsinki. Went on a walk this morning round Töölönlahti, which is an arm of the sea in the centre of the city, encircled by a pleasant path festooned with joggers and cyclists. Many of them stop at a terrace café high up on one side, where the famous Finnish architect Alvar Aalto must once have enjoyed his cups of coffee. The evidence for this statement is given above, where you see Aalto’s 1976 Finlandia building (a multi-arts venue), placed in front of the much older – and twice as distant – tower of the Finnish National Museum behind. Just look closely. What a stroke of genius, only visible from this exact spot, and all done with a lick of paint.
Being 42 